Sci Fi series opens Derren Brown’s bag of (psychological) tricks

It’s not so hard to understand the appeal of Derren Brown, the star of Sci Fi’s new six-part series about psychological trickery. If I met him on the street, handsome and British and debonair as he is, I’d probably let him take my wallet, too.

That’s one of the many tricks Brown performs during tonight’s hourlong premiere of “Mind Control With Derren Brown.” On a British beachside street, he asks strangers for directions, then requests — and gets — their wallets and cellphones. He also shops at Manhattan stores using blank sheets of paper the size of dollar bills, gets a conductor to send a telepathic message to his orchestra, and delivers a cryptic PA announcement in a suburban mall, which makes the shoppers raise their right hands in unison.

It’s a different sort of TV magic than what we’ve grown used to on this side of the pond, where the richest, most famous illusionists lean toward the grandest spectacles. David Copperfield pretends to make the Statue of Liberty disappear; David Blaine takes up residence in a water tank. Penn & Teller, via their Showtime show with the unprintable name, morph from magicians into angry social commentators. It’s all the dramatic equivalent of shouting really loudly into someone else’s ear.

Brown, a cult figure in his native country, delivers magic as more of a snide sort of whisper. He claims no special psychic powers, just a keen set of eyes; he practices psychological sleight of hand. And it works largely because his victims are the ones doing the work, offering body language clues, lapping up subliminal messages, and proving their capacity for distraction. In one complicated set piece tonight, Brown asks two ad agency workers to devise a campaign for a taxidermy shop. They think they’re being creative, but it turns out that Brown has planted every idea in their brains.

In this case, Brown explains the trick afterward, proving that there’s nothing remotely magical about his work. Most of the time, he delivers a quick shot and moves on, leaving us to wonder. But if we watch closely enough, his secrets aren’t always hard to deduce. (This show practically demands the 8- or 15-second rewind button on the standard DVR; the Sci Fi viewing audience is presumably equipped.)

It’s all about the words Brown chooses, the careful way he mangles his instructions: when talking to the ad men, he uses the word “taxijourney” instead of “taxidermy,” and yes, it’s significant. In one New York grocery store, he asks the shopkeeper if he has “anything that would be good for you to take” for a headache, uttering the words “good for you to take” as he’s handing over blank bills. He makes it look so easy that, if I weren’t quite so upstanding, I might want to try it myself.

Granted, watching a show like this is an act of faith. We see Brown troll the streets of Manhattan, correctly guessing the amount of money in strangers’ wallets, but we don’t see how many of his attempts didn’t work. And from time to time, his trickery seems like the work of a street-level psychic. In one bit, he sits with a trio of women at a club, trying to guess which pickup lines would work on them. He hems, haws, muses attractively, then announces that one of them wants a man with a good sense of humor.

So much for the dark arts. Then again, the woman in question is squirming with glee. Magic, it seems, is all about knowing your victim. That’s why Brown has that glint in his eye; he knows that his victims want badly to be had.

• For more on TV, go to www.viewerdiscretion.net.

Previous entry: Israel reels in Kabbalah enthusiasts
Next entry: IRS attacked all pastors, says Pastor Clarke

More articles about Derren Brown